John Ngugi

John Ngugi
Full name	John Ngugi Kamau
nation	Kenya
birthday	May 10, 1962
place of birth	Nyahururu ,  Kenya
Career
discipline	Long distance running
National squad	since 1986
End of career	1992

John Ngugi (also John Ngugi Kamau ; born May 10, 1962 in Nyahururu ) is a former Kenyan long-distance runner . In 1988 he was Olympic champion in the 5000 meter run .

Life

Ngugi's first international success was winning the 1986 World Cross Country Championships . In the next three years he was also world champion in cross country .

But he was also strong on the track. At the World Athletics Championships in Rome in 1987 , he was considered one of the favorites over 5000 meters after winning his preliminary run. In the final, Ngugi took the lead after the second kilometer, but was over-sprinted on the last lap and ended up in twelfth place, which was disappointing for him.

At the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Ngugi was again the favorite. After one kilometer he took the lead as usual. Although his gap became smaller because of the final sprint of his opponents, he still won by thirty meters.

At the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, Ngugi tried to use exactly the same tactics as in Seoul. Although he stumbled on the second lap, fell to the ground and was 35 meters behind the field, he was able to catch up with the leading group and run out a lead of 40 meters. But this time the lead wasn't big enough, Ngugi was beaten by Australian Andrew Lloyd by eight hundredths of a second.

In 1992 he won the cross-country championships for the fifth time. Only Kenenisa Bekele has so far won this title more often (as of 2008).

In 1993 he was banned from the IAAF for four years after he refused to undergo an unannounced doping test in his home country. Ngugi protested that he had not been able to recognize the inspectors as such. In 1995 the ban was lifted due to "exceptional circumstances". It was taken into account that Ngugi had received no instructions from officials in his country and that he himself did not have a formal education with which he could have understood the rules on his own. However, the two-year compulsory break had effectively put an end to his career.

After a series of business failures, he regained a foothold in the late 2000s and founded the John Ngugi Foundation, a foundation that promotes young athletes.

Web links

• John Ngugi in the database of World Athletics (English)
• A Kenyan XC Legend - John Ngugi , article on IAAF website, March 15, 2007
• John Ngugi in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Footnotes

1. ^ Owen Anderson: Athletes Drug Testing In Sport ( Memento of May 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). Peak Performance website
2. ↑ Labatet: Ex-Olympic champion Ngugi sets up a Foundation ( Memento from February 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). February 28, 2009